New Delhi: The government has described as "defamatory" and "sinister" news report that said the information and broadcasting ministry has withheld funds meant for paying salaries to employees of PrasarBharatiover an alleged stand-off between the two.

The PrasarBharati in an autonomous body that runs Doordarshan and All India Radio but receives grant from the I&B ministry.

"The misinformation is based on ill-will and incorrect appreciation with half-baked facts and is tantamount to causing loss of reputation of the Government in public eyes. It is patently defamatory in nature," the I&B Ministry said in a statement in response to reports in the media.

A news portal had quoted PrasarBharati chairman A Surya Prakash as saying that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salaries for January and February out of its contingency funds as the ministry had not released the funds. If the standoff continued, the broadcaster will run out of money by April, the report said.

It said the standoff was the result of differences between I&B minister SmritiIraniand PrasarBharati.

The government statement said PrasarBharati is bound by the General Financial Rules (GFR) of the Government of India since it receives grants-in aid from the government.

It said that any autonomous organisation that receives grant-in-aid must sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ministry clearly describing physical and financial targets with timelines for activities to be done by utilising the money during that financial year.

"For the record, irrespective of repeated reminders from the ministry, no MoU has been signed by PrasarBharati," the statement said, without specifically denying Prakash's claim that the funds had been withheld.

Prakash was not available for comment but other PrasarBharati officials maintained that there has been a delay in the release of funds previously also, and the latest delay was not out of the ordinary.

However, they said that if the issue was not resolved soon it would create problems for PrasarBharati as it does not have adequate internal funds.

The media report had indicated that the confrontation between the ministry and PrasarBharati was over the public broadcaster's refusal to pay nearly Rs 3 crore as fees to a private company hired by the ministry to cover the opening and closing ceremonies of the International Film Festival of India held in Goa recently.